Term so far · Design Studio 2 4 Jun 28 May Thursday 4 June · your page 4 Jun· your page 2 of 2 This is a live example of the page a student has for a module — real audio, real transcript. Play it, jump to a moment, walk back through the term.
Tutorial · Design Studio 2
Gallery ramp scheme Sam (example student) · Thu 4 Jun, 15:00
Actions Checked by your tutor before it was issued Resolve the two entrances: make the major one read as primary, and shape the threshold so it directs you into the space.
Hear this — 11:28 Decide which parts of the covered route are heated interior and where you step outside, keeping the continuity of the journey through the building.
Hear this — 10:03 Develop the ramp as the organising move — a two- to three-storey space with light slipping down alongside it.
Hear this — 12:53 Keep the tree pocket and secret garden at the junction; try benches along the street edge of that space.
Hear this — 10:44 Check the ramp against a 1:12 gradient before the next review.
Hear this — 09:11
What happened A tutorial on the gallery scheme, working over the model and plans. The move from the early orthogonal massing to the current language was judged genuinely successful, with the ramp emerging as the organising idea — a two- to three-storey space the visitor moves through, across and over, with light slipping down alongside it. The main unresolved problem is that the building has two entrances and neither announces itself: the threshold needs to direct you in. The covered route also needs a decision about which parts are heated interior and where you deliberately step outside, without losing the continuity of the journey that holds the pieces together.
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Transcript 00:13 · Demo The major component of a relationship of a faculty to a student is the desk-side crit, critique, where you sit down with a student. The student explains where they are in the process, a drawing or a model, and you make comments.00:32 · Demo And it's a very fascinating process because you're very quickly understanding what the student is trying to do, and you have to select what criticism you can give that's going to be helpful for the next step. Happens very quickly. But it's an essential one-on-one process between myself and the students guiding the work through the semester.01:01 · Demo Perhaps during the semester there are hundreds of crits, desk-side crits that take place.01:06 · Sam Yeah.01:07 · Demo Often if there's— in this class there's 13 people, I will try to see 13 people in one afternoon and sometimes Once or twice a week. So by the end of the semester, the student has received maybe 20, 25 desk-side crits.01:30 · Demo So today you're seeing one of those.01:34 · Sam So last time I talked with you, I had this model in that spot.01:40 · Demo Yep.01:40 · Sam And I have the idea of Of creating a sort of wall, but making penetrations within it. And what I started to do was go from a very sort of square form or orthogonal form to creating more nicer shapes and just creating a stepping here, for example.02:09 · Sam We also discussed the idea of an alleyway here, and the trees that are on the site right now are the ones that I put up sort of to figure out whether I want to cut down a tree or not, or how I can work with the trees. You know me pretty well by now, and you know that I don't want to cut down trees.02:29 · Demo No, nor should you.02:31 · Sam So I'm working to preserve them, and in this case, cut into it a little bit. Instead of having an alleyway, I decided that I'd have a secret garden sort of in the back here and then create a balcony in there.02:51 · Demo Hmm.02:51 · Sam So that there'd be a sort of balcony here from the second floor, and out here would be a secret garden sort of thing. And this idea of having Sort of an arcade would be present here as well.03:07 · Demo Would be in, would be here also.03:09 · Sam Here too.03:10 · Demo Okay.03:10 · Sam And on one of my plans, let's see. I was, I was working with that sort of idea and seeing how it can just flow through the space maybe. And so one of One of the ideas that this model here, this shape suggested to me, was the idea of a footbridge just crossing that.03:34 · Sam And since I'm working with elderly, I think it would be very nice to have a footbridge here so that they won't have to go all the way down and then get another elevator or take another ramp up. They can just cut across here. And since I'm thinking of having a screen here or a sort of theater space out here for outdoors, I could have people lining up here and looking in there, or having screenings of films and things like that.04:01 · Sam I could have people— this would be another sort of seating area, and we could have a speaker system or something fixed up there.04:10 · Demo Mm-hmm.04:11 · Sam So right now I feel sort of set on how I'm doing this. Something actually, a minor detail that was suggested to me simply from the shapes that I had It was sort of having a lower window here, and since this is going to be my more private space, private building versus the— and quieter building versus a louder sort of more social space here, I like the idea of having those windows be right at the very bottom in that level.04:45 · Demo Which means that this is a 2-story space?04:47 · Sam That would be one story.04:50 · Demo But light's going down in below.04:52 · Sam Yeah.04:53 · Demo So in this, inside this, is there space?04:57 · Sam There will be, yeah. I imagine that being either the, where the infants would be in my daycare center, or just a place where people can go and sleep, children, elderly, and sleep. And I don't know, it's just a minor touch, but just the shape that I had from that cross-section, Cardboard. Because they didn't match, I just put it in, and I realized that it suggested something to me that way.05:22 · Demo But the point is, there would be a slot of light behind that, or you're just getting light into this level?05:30 · Sam Yeah, the only light will be coming—05:32 · Demo natural light will be coming in from the floor, sort of.05:36 · Sam That was a minor detail. But in terms of, I don't know, penetrating sort of this space, I decided I would probably include this tree into the actual building. Having people from the street level, this being the street, well, part of yours, sort of the tourists coming that way.05:58 · Sam This, I like the way that taking this out a little bit invited people in here and sort of showed them the way of how to enter this building. And including the tree. And here I had the same sort of concept that I could include this tree, the trees.06:17 · Sam Before Tuesday, I hadn't put the trees in, and I just sort of plunked all my objects here. But once I put the trees, I started thinking, well, maybe I could do something like that.06:29 · Demo Mm-hmm.06:30 · Sam And I realized that I would just lose the whole idea I had of Mm-hmm. Of relating to the street and having that right angle right there. So—06:39 · Demo Okay, back.06:41 · Sam I see that the only solution for those trees would be to just include them in the building. Create— one of my ideas is to create a patio area on that one.06:53 · Demo Mm-hmm.06:54 · Sam That would be a patio area for eating and things like that. And you mentioned to me creating a secret garden. here on the left, and the entrance would be somehow having to do with entering through here and going through the building. And looking at these 2 trees, they— it just was a gateway sort of to enter into this space.07:14 · Demo Yeah.07:14 · Sam So I'm imagining that they will create a sort of gateway to enter in here where there'll be a playground, some swing sets, tables for, I don't know, 2 elderly gentlemen to Just these images I have in my head right now. I just imagine bushes right now separating that space so that people walking by know it's there and then question, how do I get in there?07:41 · Sam And realize that they actually have the right to go in there because this is a public space. So those are my basic ideas right now.07:50 · Demo If I'm coming down the street for the first time, Do you see me coming into this space or into here as the entrance?08:01 · Sam Well, I think this would be more prominent, and I think more people will enter into here at first and then find out what this is. This is going to be the central space to my design. And yes, I think that I had to stick the wall out a little bit here because there had to be a sort of way to invite people into this building as well, even though it's my quieter building for study, for sleeping, and taking care of infants.08:33 · Sam Whereas here is the dining and the teaching kids more creative arts, things like that. So I am hoping people enter here, but I do see that that is prominent there. Maybe I should suppress that a little.08:48 · Demo All right, I got it. First of all, the evolution from this to this is very successful because I think you're starting to develop an architecture language in this, which needs obviously more work, but it's nevertheless, it's taking the rough form into something that's more precise, and I think it's good.09:11 · Demo The notion of a ramp that moves through this, and across, and over, which is a new idea since before, is very powerful. Just so you know, the normal ramp is 1 to 12, and this is probably not that, but that's okay, that's a handicap, that's not necessarily—09:27 · Sam Okay.09:28 · Demo But the notion of the ramp being the thing that moves me through this, at least to a certain extent, I think is very powerful. Some comments. The idea that this is still covered and light's coming into this, I think is powerful, but I'm not so sure it's necessary to continue it in the same way.09:54 · Demo For instance, here it could be outside, this walkway, or slightly covered, but not necessarily heated.10:03 · Sam Okay.10:03 · Demo So you'd have, whereas this one might be a heated space. So I could come in into a heated building, and then I'm covered, and I come out, and maybe I go back into it, as opposed to it completely being covered as you show it here.10:16 · Sam And here I showed it in section too.10:19 · Demo Right. Well, it could be that you need, first of all, you need this continuity, which I think is very powerful, of the of the path through, or the journey through the building to hold together the pieces. So that's very positive. Then the question is the magnitude of it, and it could be that this is overboard just a little bit, and you could draw back on it.10:43 · Sam Yeah.10:44 · Demo At the same time, I think you very ingeniously have figured out a way of meeting this to this by making this little place for the tree, which I think is terrific. And producing the little secret garden. But where I don't think it works is where you think of this as being covered.11:03 · Sam Okay.11:03 · Demo I think the building somewhere in here stops and you go outside into this space. And this guy, this little space, is to the street. This one is to the building. So maybe in there there's a bench or 2 so I can sit on it, or in fact all along this might be benches As a public place. This is given over to the street.11:26 · Demo The other is given over to the building.11:27 · Sam Okay.11:28 · Demo So you move in. Now, that brings me to the right, and that's why I asked you the question. You have a very subtle but important problem of architecture, and that is that you do have 2 entrances, really. There's this, which is very major, and there's this that's important. For you, but is not as major, probably, as this.11:52 · Demo That would say for me that because there's a directionality here that you're working with, that you need to make some forms. Can I do something with this?12:01 · Sam Yeah, please.12:02 · Demo You need to do something with this, not that necessarily, but something like that, that wrecks me into this space a little bit more forceful.12:13 · Sam Okay.12:13 · Demo Even to the point where, in the most extreme— can I have a piece of some toys? This is extreme, but even to the point— I don't mean it like this— even to the point where it says, I come to this point and I'm directed into slipping into the space here. At the same time, I can go in here, but this is probably the one that I think I'm going to go into.12:38 · Demo If I don't know the building. So, I think you need to pronounce that more. And I'm going to be leading up to something here, because the directionality of this could be exploited more than what you've done, because there is this to work with, just as you've been working with that.12:52 · Sam Right.12:53 · Demo However, at the same time that I say that, it seems to me that coming into this space with this wonderful ramp, which is a 2-story or 3-story space, I can imagine light slipping down alongside of it, Is also important, and even to the point where this ramp might have just slightly turned to pick me up. So, I come in when I know the building, or come out, by the way, it's not only going in, it's coming out.13:19 · Sam Yeah.13:20 · Demo So, I come in or I go out through this ramp that is a clear kind of definition. I talked to you the other day about paths and places. This is the clear journey of a path moving through your environment and coming down. Into something. So, all I'm saying is watch out here that you don't overdo it.13:40 · Demo You need to get us in, but you need to get us in there even more.13:44 · Sam Okay.13:45 · Demo And you're not there yet in the sense that you haven't worked over there yet, so it probably will happen. Incidentally, I think it's incredibly sensitive of you to try to save the trees, and And that's a real plus, and not always very easy. Now, the form that you're working with in here, the forms, is terrific, except the next go-around, you may find that this is not all glass.14:16 · Sam Yep.14:17 · Demo And for the kids, this is a daycare up here, this may be a playground for them. And therefore, I can move out into that space from there.14:26 · Sam Oh, okay.14:27 · Demo And maybe it's— so it doesn't mean you don't do this, it may mean that at this corner, the corner is a good place, I go out into a roof garden here for the kids, otherwise they don't have a place to play, or they might play down there, but they could still have a place here as long as it's protected, obviously, but it's a kid little hangout, or a little secret place, which is kind of neat, up in the sky, if I were a kid.14:53 · Demo And you can look out and watch people and stuff.14:55 · Sam You can have slumber parties outside.14:56 · Demo Yeah, so there's a lot of privacy, and as we said before, as you go up, things are more private. So this makes this daycare for the kids very private, and almost like, if you wish, they are viewers of the street, they watch people go back and forth. Now, let's move over to here, because I think that's important. My problem area.15:17 · Demo It's not yet your problem area, but it's your problem area because you haven't done it. But I think there's a major piece here if I'm reading this right. This is still that wall, right?15:31 · Sam Yes.15:31 · Demo And the tree is here, right? And the other tree is in here. And there's another tree back here, right?15:38 · Sam Yeah, and there's a little bit— a little one.15:41 · Demo Another little tree? Okay, good. And then there's a wall back in here. 2 things that you might consider. You have this, the wall that we talked about, and then the opening I'm going through, and we talked about all this. And I'm going under, and I mentioned that we need to have some kind of a way of getting us— there's a tree in here, by the way, somewhere— into this space.16:04 · Demo All that's fine. And I'm above it. That then is this passageway that's coming to a point, and then either by ramp, in the same way, it comes down into this, and it would be interesting if there's a way you could make that ramp then part of seats, which then relates to your amphitheater, which is here, if you can do that.16:31 · Demo So then, I have a continuous experience coming down. If you can't make that happen, then maybe this ramp comes along across, and there's some major kind of spiral stairs, like the one over the memorial, Starl Drive, that gets me down and out into this space. Because this is really the center of the life for you, and outside— this is inside.16:55 · Demo But the point that I wanted to make is that the building is— let me just move this slightly. It's here, and you have this space that we talked about before. It seems to me still that since there's a tremendous notion here that there's a wall of different kinds that are coming along the street, that we still might see something here that is not obviously nearly as opaque as this, maybe much lower, but is collected to this.17:27 · Demo In some way, so that the corner is not turned drastically. Maybe this is low, maybe this is translucent, I can see through, and then this becomes, which is what I think you want, something of a secret garden to hang out in, which is not necessarily connected to this, or could be.17:47 · Demo Now, here comes the piece that I think could be interesting. If these guys— These trees are here, then maybe this building does this, and this part is outside. So that when I'm in this space, I'm letting the trees to be outside, and I'm also providing a way of getting into this building, or out.18:13 · Sam From the street, or this would still be cut off?18:15 · Demo No, this would still be here, but all I'm saying is that in order to keep that tree, which you want to do, Yeah. Maybe it's part of this space, and it's also a way of making the transition as another entrance or exit from this building into this space, as opposed to, which is what you were suggesting, which was to corral it or build something around it basically, and then hope that it's going to be— it's not going to live in It has to be outside somehow.18:48 · Demo You could make a courtyard out of it, but I think the— you've got a bum pencil hand. I think the courtyard is too close to the other courtyard to make any sense. So instead of a courtyard here and a courtyard here, it might be combined.19:07 · Sam Okay.19:07 · Demo Now, in the best world, maybe this tree If you're more accurate, the 2 trees, so that this is more of a tiny triangular chunk out of this, as opposed to the one I just drew, but I don't know, we have to see what it is. And then you still have that. So now I have this kind of relationship from this, and by the way, you said there'd be a hedge here, so now I'm saying there's some kind of translucent wall in here, I can see through, I can see people.19:39 · Demo They're playing chess, etc. But maybe there's something else in here, there's water, I don't know what, that acts as a focus of this. But because the trees are marching along, I'm putting another one here, this space is marching into this one.19:54 · Sam Yeah.19:55 · Demo And then I'm into that. And by the way, even better, if I could figure out a way that I can, at this point, see right through this building, and out into the amphitheater. So then I get a continuous experience between the hardness, I'll say for the moment, of the amphitheater to the inside, to transition into this very quiet garden, which might have water.20:18 · Demo I guess we talked about that before.20:20 · Sam Mm-hmm.20:21 · Demo So there's different experiences along the way, but they're all connected. There's 2 connections that you got. One is the The screen, we'll call it, along the street, and the other one is your ingenious ramp that is moving through, down and around into this. Now, tell me again, is this— I've forgotten— is this guy a 2-story building?20:47 · Sam It'll be 2 or 3, I'm not sure yet. I was envisioning 3 because I was seeing, again, this is where it's Yeah. I wanted to mimic that here, sort of an echo of it, and also mimic sort of the— as a stadium, as an amphitheater. But until I sort of tackle that, I don't know.21:09 · Sam But I was envisioning 3 stories. I talked to you last time about hierarchy, and I was worried that I was missing out on the hierarchy if the 2 buildings are the same sort of height. height. So I might lose that, but maybe if I can emphasize this as being a central space, then that would be my hierarchy and I won't need to—21:33 · Demo Well, what we talked about before too is that the roofs, if it's a second-story building, say, which is going to interfere with this thing coming across, so this thing may slip behind it, could be seats for the amphitheater. And then there are seats down here also for the amphitheatre. So that the side of this building, although it's got transparency moving into the space, but the side of that building is actually moving up from the landscape, making a kind of a bowl shape.22:03 · Demo And I think that's very powerful because you're putting an incredible amount of energy or activity on this.22:11 · Sam Mm-hmm.22:12 · Demo When we're all done, this is probably the place where you come to have an event, obviously, but also kind of a meeting place.22:21 · Sam Yeah.22:21 · Demo This is a place where— and the kids might play in here and run around.22:25 · Sam Yeah.22:26 · Demo This is probably the quiet place, where they, as you said, play checkers or whatever, and it's wonderful. In fact, maybe this even becomes more green in relationship to this.22:38 · Sam I'm worried somewhat of the sunlight since most of the sunlight would be coming in through here.22:43 · Demo Right.22:45 · Sam I'm also thinking of stepping it down towards this building so that maybe the sunlight could go right in that corner and enter into this space.22:53 · Demo Well, I'd be careful. I'll tell you why. You're defining this space and it does have 2 good definitions. This, by having the wall up at that point, There's a slippage there, which is fine. Makes it more contained. If you start stepping it down, you may start to lose some of that containment.23:12 · Sam Okay.23:13 · Demo And this is a different kind of a space than this. I don't think this is— here, this backyard space, little secret garden, it's fine that it slips out. I'm not so sure that this one wants to slip out as much. But I would invite you to take the model And a Luxor lamp, or any light, and follow the sun.23:35 · Demo Yeah, just one, that's perfect, that's the sun. And follow the sun and see what it does, because the next step would be to consider if the sun, for instance, is coming over the building, then on this side of the— where am I? Am I— no, that's right.23:57 · Demo The event building, there might be panels that can divert the light down into here, or if the sun is coming this way, there might be panels on the side of the building that's vertical that can divert, bounce the light down, we talked about.24:13 · Sam Yep.24:14 · Demo I doubt you're going to get much sun down into here, period, but you are going to probably get sun up above. So, these panels, or even, yeah, so these panels maybe are up here that are catching the sun and bringing it down. So, there's another, uh-huh, so there's a whole other kind of design notion here that we haven't talked about.24:40 · Demo All this is, let's assume it's all done. Then, there may be up around this building, which is going to be—24:46 · Sam A roof.24:48 · Demo screen on this, right? But even above that, there might be panels that are bouncing light all the way around at a certain height, which is another form of architecture, sky form actually.24:59 · Sam Yeah.25:00 · Demo And I'm catching the sun bouncing light down into what I think is your major place, this one, not here. This is cool, green, shady, Quiet. This is alive, light, hot, sunny, just the opposite. But beyond that, and of course we should be using the sun as much as we can, beyond that, this is an architectural— another architectural continuity.25:31 · Demo So it's not only bouncing the sun, but it's something else.25:35 · Sam I like the way that the site, or the way that The way this is laid out right now is sort of hugging itself. This is quiet, here is quiet, and then there's the busy activities in the center. It feels like it's getting there, continuing a little bit better.25:53 · Demo I think the organization is just right the way you have filled it. I think the architectural language that you're starting to develop is the beginning. I would move on now quickly to here.26:05 · Sam Yes.26:07 · Demo And I happen to know from experience that this ramp is not going to be as nice as you think. It's going to take a little working to make it work.26:15 · Sam Yeah.26:16 · Demo But it's a powerful notion that the ramp is an organizer.This page is private to you and your tutors
Threads across the term
Develop the ramp as the organising move — a two- to three-storey space with light slipping down alongside it.
28 May 4 Jun · raised 2 times
Check the ramp against a 1:12 gradient before the next review.
28 May 4 Jun · raised 2 times
On a student's real page, below this: questions and documents to bring to the next tutorial, their AI choice, and a way to message the module leader.
The recording is a real studio tutorial: MIT OpenCourseWare 4.125 Architecture Studio, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. The feedback and actions were produced from it the way any tutorial's would be.